Are these products you've actually used to determine that they are "overrated"?

I get overpriced but it seems like claiming something is overrated would require actual experience with a particular product. For instance, it would be hard for me to say a Chris King headset is overrated when I have personally used one for 12 years without ever servicing it on my road bike. But it would be easy to say its overpriced for my mountain bike that I'll probably replace in a couple years.

This thread is useless without saying what your actual experience with the product is.

I'll start,

Panaracer greenlite tubes - Not only does performance sell 95g tubes made out of regular, patchable, rubber for only $7.99, but the valves in greenlites are so delicately mounted that you can usually pull them right off a brand new tube with virtually no force. The slightest jarring makes them leak from the valve area.

Panaracer greenlite tubes - Not only does performance sell 95g tubes made out of regular, patchable, rubber for only $7.99, but the valves in greenlites are so delicately mounted that you can usually pull them right off a brand new tube with virtually no force. The slightest jarring makes them leak from the valve area.

Bike Helmets

-Specialized Tires...always rated high by the magazines but they always shed knobs for me rather quickly

-ANY factory pre-built proprietary wheel...overpriced, uses hard to find parts, repairs usually entail sending the entire wheel back to manufacturer. Handbuilt wheels using stock parts can be made as strong and as light for usually less money and often be repaired while you wait.

-Italian Saddles...I've found that Velo made saddles are just as comfortable, durable, and as light as saddles costing 5-20x more. I currently use the same Velo saddle on my road and on my mountain bike (labeled Nashbar and Sette respectively) that cost me less than $50 for both. A good pair of shorts makes a bigger difference.

-Titanium spindles, axles, and skewers...1/2 the stiffness of steel, these are not good places to have flex when you really can't increase the "tube" size to compensate. There is a reason Shimano doesn't use it for these three applications.

Chris King headsets? Really? I don't think so.

I have an inch and an eighth King headset that I bought in 1992 that was originally a threaded headset and I converted a couple years later to threadled when that became the thing. It doesn't even say Chris King on the cups it's so old. In the past 17 years that headset has been on 4 XC hardtails, 3 dual suspension XC bikes, 1 Freeride bike, 2 DH rigs, 3 rigid SS, it now resides on my Slingshot SS that it has been on for the last 4 years but before that it spent 3 summers on my DJ/Lake jump bike (that's right, floating in the water). It has never been serviced and it spins like Butter! When a headset outlives a dozen or so bikes and only cost 50% more that an decent at best headset is it really overpriced and overrated? When you say something is overpriced and overrated it really should be and I can't see a 17 years old, 102g, gorgeous headset that has been used and abused that still works perfectly falling into that category. Can anyone else? What are the original posters qualifications? He can't afford this stuff?

I have an inch and an eighth King headset that I bought in 1992 that was originally a threaded headset and I converted a couple years later to threadled when that became the thing. It doesn't even say Chris King on the cups it's so old. In the past 17 years that headset has been on 4 XC hardtails, 3 dual suspension XC bikes, 1 Freeride bike, 2 DH rigs, 3 rigid SS, it now resides on my Slingshot SS that it has been on for the last 4 years but before that it spent 3 summers on my DJ/Lake jump bike (that's right, floating in the water). It has never been serviced and it spins like Butter! When a headset outlives a dozen or so bikes and only cost 50% more that an decent at best headset is it really overpriced and overrated? When you say something is overpriced and overrated it really should be and I can't see a 17 years old, 102g, gorgeous headset that has been used and abused that still works perfectly falling into that category. Can anyone else? What are the original posters qualifications? He can't afford this stuff?

Your story is the extreme exception. For at least 95% of the people who buy them, they never get anywhere close to their money's worth. Once you start really crunching the numbers, it rarely ever comes close to adding up. And it's not 50% more. CK's are ~$130 these days, you can get a very good HS for $40-45. That's 3 times more

I have CK headsets on 6 of my 7 mountain bikes and both of my road bikes. Most of the headsets have been on a few bikes. I have never had to service any of them and they work as good as new.

I have CK hubs on 3 bikes, Hadley's on 2 bikes, and I9 hubs on 2 bikes. I love my King hubs, but I think Hadley hubs offer more bang for the buck and similar performance. The I9 are sweet because they can be laced with anodized aluminum spokes in a variety of colors. I think they are definitely worth the money. Compared to a set of Zipp road bike wheels that can run up to $2000, their $800-900 price seems pretty reasonable (in relative terms).

Thomson stems and seatposts are the strongest and most reliable on the market. Yet they only retail for $80-90.

Most boutique frames like Independent Fab and Merlin and Ellsworth. You guys are missing the point with some stuff though. I use Thomson posts and stems exclusively. They have outlasted several bikes and the beauty of them is they retain their value. I have sold used thomson parts for $65 dollars on ebay when I only paid 80-90 dollars and used it for a few years. King headsets are the same. I have had one black headset on 4 frames over 8 years. I got one at performance for 89 dollars on special using a coupon, used it for 2 years and sold it for 80 bucks. 9 dollars for 2 years service is pretty good.

overpriced is relative. I would love to have nearly all of the parts on the OPs list, but the fact is that most of them are beyond my budget and I regard them as too far down the road of diminishing returns. Not one of those parts is a 'lemon' in any real sense. To an extent I agree about crossmax wheels, as the cost of repair is high, but they are very light if one is looking for race wheels. I would put most vapourware in this category, eg. AX lightness, schmolke, and so on. BIG money for parts that fall to pieces...

Chris King Hub 150x12, only fast engaging 150x12 out there and STRONG.
blown 2/3 nukeproofs in months with a fraction fo the grief i give the CK.
Steep and £140 but worth it.

CK headset - set and forget, for the £0 I paid for it great value.

S-Works bikes, only got the experience of the old HT, but stiff light, strong and silly fast - sorry the issue is?

High end helmets, OK they are overpriced, but the ventilation is worth the expense if you don't like a melted brain.

The parts that have caused me the most grief.

Niner RIP9 '07 - new stuff is great, but you would not believe the grief that bike caused.
White brothers forks - why their seals can't hack uk cnditions is beyond me.
Nukeproof - overpriced flimsy shite.
Nukeproof - just stressing the hatred of the customer service as well as the products.

Thomson stuff is bomb proof. I've had the same seat post running completely problem free and unbroken for seven or eight years. The anodizing is going from being clamped in the repair stand, but aside from that it's killer.

Also, if you had ever seen the testing they put their stuff through to get to catastrophic failure and then seen the common competitors relative lack of time in the same rig, I think you'd be impressed.

"Bikes aren't fast--people are fast. Bikes are overpriced. It's an important distinction."---BikeSnob NYC

This is a great thread to really get people pissed off and defensive about what they dropped a lot of $$ on.

I think there is a difference between asking if something is overpriced for what it is, as opposed to if it is worth the money. CK headsets and thomson seat posts, for example. They are clearly of a quality that you don't get for a cheaper price. In that sense, they are not overpriced. Are they WORTH that extra cost for the extra quality? That's where I think they come up short.